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Sunday September 29, 2013 5:16 AM

For the past several years, my wife and I have attended a public-library book sale around the
July Fourth weekend in Massachusetts.

The massive sale lasts for days. From the start, the public and used-book dealers pour over the
offerings. When tables get low, more boxes are opened and more books are displayed.

On the final day of the sale, when pickings are slimmer, books sell for $1 per bag.

Recently, a reader told me of her experience with her community’s annual library book sale and
how it “may not be what it seems.”

Apparently, her library has a contract with an online book dealer who “cherry-picks all the good
stuff,” she writes. Once the online book dealer has his picks, the library permits volunteers who
work on the sale to choose from what’s left.

Next, books go on sale to “friends of the library,” who pay a special annual fee, and then the
general public. My reader falls in the latter category.

Longtime patrons who don’t fall into special privileged categories have begun to complain and
are frustrated by the increasingly slim pickings at the sale.

Is she right in stating that the sale is “a bit of a rip-off?”

To me, it sounds like a lousy deal. It seems that the general public is limited to final-day
pickings right from the start.

Nevertheless, if the library makes it clear how it is operating — and who gets first picks and
when — then a buyer has the opportunity to decide whether to even bother with the sale. The
community spirit might be dampened if the public knows it is getting the dregs. Yet if the library
feels that it can raise more money by creating tiers of buyers, then that is a fair decision.

The right thing is to make rules of the book sale as transparent as possible.

Granted, my reader’s sale doesn’t sound like one I’d expect much from if I were a member of the
general buying public.

The organizers would be wise to determine whether the long-term effect of their policy is to
drive away so many customers that their fundraising strategy doesn’t pay off.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, a lecturer in public policy, directs the communication program at the
Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Mass.